The LATAM flight from Auckland to Santiago is an introduction to Latin America. All around me, from the flight stewards to the other passengers, I hear volleys of Spanish. Hoping the last two years of Duolingo will stand me in good stead, I attempt to ask for a glass of water and receive a cup of orange juice. "Hmm," I think, "This isn't as easy as I thought it would be."
That feeling is compounded after we arrive at the airport. Dodging taxi touts, we google how to get into the city. We need cash to get a bus, and then need a bip! card to get the metro (for which we also need cash), and we also think it would be sensible to get SIM cards for our phones. Jacob manages to get cash out at an extortionate rate while I queue up for the bus. We get on (standing room only) and I try to practice my Spanish by reading the Whatsapp exchange of a woman sitting near me until I realise (from the gifs they are sending each other, rather than any comprehension of the words, unfortunately) that it is a pretty steamy exchange between her and (presumably) her boyfriend. We manage to get a bip! card after some bewildered wandering in the metro station, and manage to get a SIM card in a tiny corner shop after some more bewildered wandering along Avenida Antonio Manuel, only to find that you need Wifi to activate it. After getting to the apartment, we find a nearby supermarket with bewilderingly expensive items, scrounge together a meal of black beans, rice, and avocado, and go to bed.
The next day, I wake up and look outside the window. The city is huge, covered with a slight haze, behind which loom the Andes mountains. When I imagined our travels in South America I thought the unfamiliar would feel exciting and expansive. Instead, it feels all a little overwhelming; the daily things that I used to to give a second thought to at home, like buying groceries, or navigating a public transport system, are suddenly enigmatic puzzles requiring far more brain work. The good thing is, we have time to learn.
The first thing we learn is that nobody shops in the supermarkets if they can help it. People in Santiago shop in ferias, local markets that sell fresh produce, dried goods, clothes, meals, and more. We go to a small one near our apartment, and then La Vega Central, a sprawling warren that feels abundant with a slight frisson of danger. Although the food truck selling vegan completos (a quintessentially Chilean twist on hotdogs) that was so well reviewed on Google is disappointingly absent – on holiday, we realise too late from their Instagram – we are directed to a neighbouring market that has stalls of cooked food including one with the label "vegano" which dishes up hefty bowls of bean stew. I ask a couple what they are eating: "Porotos y granjados," they say -- a corn and bean stew -- and order that. Jacob gets a bowl of lentils, and we slurp them up, mopping up the soup with pieces of bread we later learn is called Marraqueta.
We spend so much time finding lunch that we miss the free walking tour we booked. Thankfully, there is another one an hour later and we join that. We start the tour by hearing the crazy story of Lautaro and Pedro De Valdivia. Valdivia was the Spanish conquistador who founded Santiago in 1541, and Lautaro was an indigenous Mapuche boy captured by the Spanish, who served as a stable boy to Valdivia. Lautaro later ran away, and then led an uprising that resulted in the capture and death of Valdivia. Learning about a city and is history is one way to learn to love it. Hearing about what this building means or that fountain symbolises as we walk past them is like hearing the childhood stories of a new friend.
Another way I learn to love the city is by living in it, not as a tourist, but just as me. One day we go on a long run, through the narrow parks that run through the city and up the Cerro San Cristobel. The hill is a tourist attraction, but including it within our usual routine of a run means it feels like there is no pressure to enjoy it -- and so the joy and amazement we feel seeing the city spread out from the hill's height is an added bonus. We also go to the local cinema to watch Hamnet. The cinema is like a cinema in any other big city, and I cry just as much (which is to say, a lot) as I would have if I'd have watched it in Singapore. When, puffy-eyed and solemn, we emerge from the dark theatre to the bright central square, we see men sitting at tables under trees, playing chess with deft moves. It's nice to stand and watch a game or two - Jacob has an amused smile on his face, and on the metro tells me about how he played chess competitively for a short time as a child (I never knew)!
When Sunday comes around, we find an English-speaking church to go to. It's called the Santiago Community Church and we arrive slightly late, but other people enter after us including a father and son carrying their bicycle seats in. The vicar speaks slowly and clearly on God's provision in Deuteronomy 9 and John 6, through manna and loaves and fishes. God provides, and we trust in him. This is a simple principle, but so hard to live out day to day. The day before, Jacob and I started putting together a meal plan for a seven day hike we're about to embark on, and it feels like we need to get it all right and under control. More broadly, the entire six months we have ahead of us feels like such an untamed beast, and my heart wants to know how it will all pan out -- but God says, one step at a time, and trust. After church, we meet a whole host of lovely people: Ryan, from Canada, who recognised us from one of the museums we'd been to; Audrey, a woman from Kidlington, who encouraged us to "wait in eager hope" when it comes to our travels; and Hector, a man with a cane who said, "You will make me cry!" when Jacob said he was from the UK. Apparently Hector loves England, and English people, except for Norwich (when asked why, he said, "Because there I caused a scandal!" and nothing more). The night before, we'd prayed that we'd find community in the church -- a sense of family amidst the unfamiliar -- and it feels like God has provided all of that and more.
